Dan Hodges is a former Labour Party and GMB trade union official, and has managed numerous independent political campaigns. He writes about Labour with tribal loyalty and without reservation. You can read Dan's recent work here

Liam Byrne's unabashed Blairism is tolerated for now, but he is heading for a clash with Ed Miliband's Flat-Earthers

Let’s face it, you don’t bump into many "Byrnites" in the Labour party. Liam Byrne, the shadow work and pensions secretary, can’t claim a cult following. Or, to be honest, any following at all.

There are several reasons for this. Byrne’s not much of a political pin up, looking a bit like Gollum just before Bilbo Baggins does a runner with his ring. He also made the mistake of admitting in a farewell note to ministerial successor David Laws that “there’s no money left”, a joke that if not off-colour was certainly off-message. And he’s an unashamed fan of Tony Blair, which, going by Guardian columnist Seamus Milne’s definition, makes him the shadow cabinet’s zombie-in-chief.

If anything, Byrne has become a political target, weaving in and out of the cross-hairs of Labour’s increasingly trigger-happy Flat-Earth tendency. “Spineless”, was Polly Toynbee’s description of his stance on the welfare bill. Len McCluskey annointed him outrider for the shadow cabinet’s “four horseman of the austerity apocalypse”. “An interesting case study of the worst elements of New Labour”, was the author and baby-faced assassin Owen Jones’s description.

Admittedly, the title of his latest pamphlet, “The New Centre Ground: How progressives win a new majority”, doesn’t exactly scream “page-turner”. And the casual reader could be deterred by a list of acknowledgements that include Gordon Bajnai, former prime minister of Hungary; Pär Nuder, the former Swedish finance minister; and someone referenced obliquely as “Clive”. But it’s worth persevering with, because while it doesn’t exactly provide Labour with a route-map back to power, it manages to give Byrne’s party some timely advice on where to pick up a nice warm jacket and comfortable hiking boots.

His central thesis is relatively uncontroversial; that to win Labour must anchor itself firmly in the mainstream. At least, it shouldn’t be that controversial, except under Ed Miliband’s leadership even the simplest acts of positioning require Twister-style contortions.

True, Labour’s leader has himself spoken of his desire to seize control of the middle ground of politics. But when he tries to locate this hallowed turf, he invariably ends up pointing in fifteen different directions at once. At one time or another Miliband has claimed the political centre on behalf of rioting students, the squeezed middle, the trade unions, the occupy movement, pensioners, the St. Paul’s protestors, women with faulty breast implants and commuters facing a hike in car parking charges from South Eastern trains. In fact, the only person who doesn’t seem to warrant a place inside Miliband’s increasingly crowded big tent is poor old Stephen Hester.

In contrast, Byrne conducts a much more focused and politically sober survey of the central terrain of British politics, and what Labour must do to assert ownership of it. Not deficit denial, but fiscal realism. A diversification from over-dependence on financial services. An element of compulsion to push, as well as entice, people out of the benefit trap. Less dependency on central government. In fact, in a number of areas, less government, period.

Byrne’s pamphlet doesn’t represent a head-on challenge to his leader’s cherished "New Politics". But it is a bold foray beyond the narrow confines of his work and pensions brief.

Hence his care to pay his respects to both Miliband and Ed Balls in the Progress article accompanying the document. Balls is “tough on tax and spending”; Miliband “right” when he says Labour needs “hard thought about what to keep from the third way and what to change for new times”.

Of course, whenever a politician praises a colleague in an aside, it’s a fair indication that said colleague doesn’t actually support them at all. And Byrne knows full well Ed Miliband won’t be opening his speech to September’s Labour party conference by quoting, as Byrne does, the British Social Attitude Survey’s findings of plunging support for tax rises to improve public services, rising resentment at benefit levels, resistance to Government redistribution of wealth and a belief child poverty is the responsibility of feckless parents.

For now Miliband is content for Byrne to run interference for him on internally toxic issues, such as the benefit cap, while Byrne is pleased with his license to nudge Labour’s welfare policy back towards the electorate. But Miliband’s eyes remain focused firmly to the Left, whilst Byrne’s gaze is fixed Rightwards. Sooner or later there will have to be a reckoning.

Despite the Flat-Earther’s constant cries of “alarum!”, Byrne is nowhere near the top of Miliband’s blacklist of those representing a direct threat to his leadership. Of greater concern is Ed Ball’s newfound fondness for Lasagne con Melanzane, and while Miliband and his aides recognise Byrne as an ideological rival, they know it would require a lot of people to fall under a lot of buses before he was in position to challenge for the ultimate prize.

That said, Liam Byrne has set out an interesting stall this week. Keep an eye on him just in case.